


And If Love Looks Like Amelia

by backintimeforstuff



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Episode: s05e03 Victory of the Daleks, F/M, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Love/Hate, and the blitz thrown in, just a random one shot, with some daleks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 17:35:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29247384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/backintimeforstuff/pseuds/backintimeforstuff
Summary: The Doctor tells Amy that hate looks like a Dalek, he says he’s going to prove it. But when the sky burns over London, he hopes he can prove to her what love looks like, too.Victory of the Daleks one-shot.
Relationships: Eleventh Doctor/Amy Pond
Kudos: 8





	And If Love Looks Like Amelia

Before, if you’d said _Winston Churchill_ to Amy Pond, she would have shrugged. No doubt, important, but, the Second Word War just seemed a long way off. Photographs of it depicted something as alien to her as a whole other world, a locked, unreachable history of long air-raid ridden nights and a persistent nagging sense of impending doom. It was something, despite all the chaos of the future, she could never quite imagine being… real.

They’re up on the roof of the Cabinet War Rooms, and the sky is burning; it’s black and red and billowing, barrage balloons blocking out the sun. No doubt, she’s smelt smoke before, on birthday cakes, on bonfire nights, but this… God, this is history. Staring out into the abyss with bricks and debris burning to a crisp - this is way beyond real.

She’s nowhere near a Londoner, but she supposes she doesn’t have to be. All those people, suffocating under a blanket of ash, air raid sirens blaring in the midst; God, she feels sick. Whatever they’ve come up here to see, be it secret weapons or an enigma machine, she’s stopped listening. She can’t take her eyes off it, the sheer destruction of it all. The Doctor’s faffing around by her left shoulder, turning away, seemingly unconcerned by the horror in front of his eyes. She brushes a hand back, reaching for the cuff of his jacket.

“Doctor, wait, it’s…” She doesn’t know what to say. It goes on for _miles_. “How can you stand it?”

“It’s _history._ ”

There’s a lump rising in her throat. “Doesn’t seem like it.”

“I know.” 

They’ve had their moment, and she knows it, a brief second of shared understanding before it billows off into the air. He’s got more pressing things to think about than consolation, better things to do than stand here and marvel at the view. He’s climbing up a step ladder when she turns to look, entirely engrossed in something else altogether.

And then of course, everything changes. 

The moment he catches sight of one of those Ironside things – _Daleks_ – he insists she call them; his whole demeanour is different. He’s suddenly paying attention to the horror that surrounds him, unlocking an inner emotional door between is twin heartbeats. He’s sullen, more prone to bursts of anger, and if Amy didn’t know him any better, entirely terrified out of his mind.

He’s belittling Churchill for even bringing them here, glaring dark eyes every time a Dalek passes by. She’s tried taking him by the shoulder, tried getting the truth out, but he’s not one to overshare even in a good mood. Instead, he just looks at her. A stone cold, hard stare that’d shatter the life force out of anyone. 

“What does _hate_ look like, Amy?”, he asks, and she has no idea what to say. _He_ looks an awful lot like sorrow at the moment, not that she’d ever tell him that. Boring into shadowed eyes, she imagines hate looks like the bombers over London, of War and the Blitz and the fire curling into the sky. “Hate looks like a Dalek.” It looks like he’s about to cry. “And I intend to prove it.”

Before she can catch him, he’s walking away, disappearing behind a map-room pillar and out of sight down the long labyrinth of dusty corridors. God, it could have been _anywhere_. Anywhere in the universe for the Doctor to fall short, for his heroism to run out, but here they are. All of time and space, stuck in the depths of the Cabinet War Rooms. Where paint peels from the walls, where people bustle around with clipboards and maps and telephones, and where every step outside means a choice between life and death and _living,_ in a place like this - where it feels like the world is about to cave in.

There’s only one place she can go to understand his misery now.

Only when brick dust starts pouring down from the ceiling like summer rain, does the Doctor realise he’s lost her. Halfway through yelling at anyone who will listen, about the Daleks, about the Blitz and the ungodly battle they’re about to embark on if nothing can be solved, he stops. Turns his gaze around the room. And Amy’s not there.

He wants her opinion on something. Well, that’s not even true. He just wants to _see_ her. He’s not even going to tell her that all those times she’d tried to talk to him today had meant the _world,_ because he knows she’d only flatter him with hugs and sentimental kisses. Maybe he’s just taken too much for granted this time around. The one thing he knows, above all else, that he doesn’t know where she is.

After giving an affronted look to Churchill and another death glare to the Dalek on the door, he ducks out into the corridor, turning this way and that. He checks in the map-room, in the bathroom, in that little store cupboard where the TARDIS is parked, even in the little bedroom they’ve been given to kill some time before the planes clatter over Coventry. But even that is quiet. The bedsheets haven’t been touched, there’s no note on the table saying: _Just wondered off_ – it’s like she’s disappeared off the face of the earth altogether. With Daleks and German bombers flying overhead, It’s not exactly a safe place for a midnight stroll.

 _He was supposed to look after her._

It’s the only thing he can think about as time wears on. He’d spent so much time worrying about the Daleks and the spitfires that he hadn’t even stopped to think. He picks up his pace through the corridors and two words come to mind, blurring in front of his vision. _My Responsibility._ And then another three for good measure: _Under My Protection._ Because she is. Always has been, always will be. She may be mad and unpredictable at the best of times, but she’s _terrified_ here, and they both know it. Even before things had started to go wrong, up on the rooftop where the sky had looked like fire, she’d turned around and asked him how he could _stand it._ There’d been fear in her eyes and he’d completely ignored it, she’d been past _overwhelmed_ and he’d just walked away. The Daleks could restart the Time War in the next five minutes, cause hell throughout the universe and his top priority would be to grab Amy by the hand and make sure she was okay; look into hazel eyes and tell her – _get ready to run. I’m right behind you._ It’s his job, after all. Look after her, whatever happens.

On a final hunch, he makes it to the top of the spiralling staircase, shoving open the trap door and out onto the roof, narrowing his eyes in the wake of the breeze and the stars that scatter the horizon. And at last, he finds her. Amy’s sitting with legs swinging over the rooftop, staring with glassy eyes at the night sky.

“Hello you.” It’s a cold night - early March at his best guess - but he elects to sit down next to her anyway, with a quick hand resting upon her shoulder. “You alright?” It’s a stupid question really.

“I still don’t know how you stand it.” 

And the Doctor sighs. He takes one look at the stars and the smoke – the entire sky mapped out in front of them like an oil painting made of glass – and considers. “It’s… exposure, mostly.”

Amy nods at this. Maybe he’s getting somewhere. “Suppose you must have seen it a lot.”

He opens his mouth and closes it again. “…You get used to it.”

“Do you?”

In spite of it all, there’s no real answer to that. It _depends,_ he could say, swinging her a half smile and or a serious look in his eyes. Time travel is never easy, and he knows that all too well. History can be waded through like water, without a care in the world, but it’s only a matter of time before someone starts to drown. He takes Amy gently by the hand, feeling cold skin by the light of the fire. For a moment, they’re caught in the glint of a searchlight. 

“Right now, there are warplanes flying over the Channel, getting ready to plummet out of the sky, there are bombs falling over every city you can think of – but that’s…”

“That’s history.” Amy just looks at him. “And that’s _not the point,_ is it?”

The Doctor shakes his head. “It’s not what we’re here to fix, no.” He offers her a small smile. “You can’t change the past when you’re a part of it.”

“Says who?” Amy asks, although she’s pretty sure she already knows. The wordsmith in question cracks her a grin. She doesn’t want to tell him that she’s been doing some thinking of her own, sitting up here watching the planes roar. On a night like this, with their hands entwined, staring out a smoke trails and barrage balloons, there’s only one question she wants an answer to.

“If hate looks a Dalek,” Amy says, catching him entirely off guard, “what does love look like?” 

The Doctor laughs, quietly, his mouth curling into a smile. He doesn’t even have to think. “Love looks like _Amelia._ "

At the end of it all, whether the Doctor intends for such a dramatic showdown, enticing the Daleks out and putting them all in danger, it’s what comes to pass. He supposes rage gets the better of him sometimes. Like hate does, like love might do; if he’s nice enough to her. 

The sky burns over London, and only time will tell.


End file.
